You seem quite misinformed here confusing ideas and terms and the like. HTTP requests are stateless between each other. But HTTP itself is not a stateless protocol, as it uses connection state in resource negotiation (which is what TCP provides). Good luck implementing HTTP without any connection state.

HTTP is a stateless protocol. A stateless protocol does not require the HTTP server to retain information or status about each user for the duration of multiple requests. However, some web applications implement states or server side sessions using one or more of the following methods:

Next time it might help to check that you're right before asserting that someone else is misinformed. It'll make you look less silly when it turns out your assertion is the opposite of the first statement on the article on Wikipedia.

Also, just because I know you're wondering. You can run HTTP over a stateless transport layer such as UDP. In fact, that's what HTTPU is. Bet 'cha didn't know that. You can have that one for free (just click on this advert - oh - and this one - and here's a popup - and a virus. Yay web.).

Well, it's official. Creating a positive thread on Channel 9 (which is what I was hoping to do here) is impossible. Doesn't matter which side of the debate you're on, someone from the other side will always turn it into a flame war.

It seems you removed the portion of your rant that was talking about HTTP not really taking advantage of TCP. From the HTTPU specification, you can see why TCP is actually quite important (the important limitation bolded):

The ability to send unlimited size messages across the Internet is one of the key features of TCP. The goal of this paper is not to re- invent TCP but rather to provide a very simple emergency back up HTTP system that can leverage UDP where TCP can not be used. As such features to allow a single HTTP message to span multiple UDP messages is not provided.

@Sven Groot: If you need to do any data driven stuff, take a look at T4 for scaffolding. We've got some T4 stuff built that just about builds our entire data layer automatically. We reverse engineer the POCOs from the database and then T4 uses that to build repositories and some other stuff. It's a must have tool if you're using MVC.

Well, it's official. Creating a positive thread on Channel 9 (which is what I was hoping to do here) is impossible. Doesn't matter which side of the debate you're on, someone from the other side will always turn it into a flame war.

I had a more flamebaity post originally on the first page that I removed amount a minute or so after writing for the explicit purpose of avoiding making a flamewar. Why I wrote that original post is really is your last paragraph/sentence attracted it. I see fanbaby also kinda responded directly to that statement as well. His post is actually addressing a genuine concern ("you are taking your career in a bad direction!" sort of thing) then an attempt at insult or something.

Web technology is an incredibly sore topic here and it has been for awhile. I try to avoid joining in but it's incredibly hard sometimes to not respond esp. when the anti-web rhetoric starts getting especially dirty. Even when it's not always helpful to respond. That's just really because I'm incredibly passionate about supporting the web.

Well, it's official. Creating a positive thread on Channel 9 (which is what I was hoping to do here) is impossible. Doesn't matter which side of the debate you're on, someone from the other side will always turn it into a flame war.

Thanks for writing the post. I do agree with the basic principle of it (programming on the web is getting better). My responses were mainly in regard to certain individuals on C9 who forget that the web is a platform - warts and all - and isn't the holy book as sent by Jesus and/or Google to burn the heretics who dare use a language that has types other than variants or a GUI made out of anything other than div tags.

The web is a platform. It's getting better, and learning lessons from other platforms that went before. Hopefully one day it'll have games that don't suck, applications that are actually useful and a funding model that isn't "everything BUY COKE is HERE'S A POPUP free". It's getting there, but by jove it's taking its sweet time.

It's more then a platform. The web is the interconnected infinitely scalable network of information the largest of which has been composed in human history. The single largest connected graph of all human knowledge and culture that is updated continuously. And it's built on top of open standards available universally on billions of devices from countless vendors. In some ways I feel like webapp is a bit of a misnomer. I tend to think of developing webapps as developing a collection of interlinked resources, and linking those resources to the wider web. IE. as a web developer, you are developing/expanding the web itself.

The Webstack is messy but awesomely performant. I'm just about ready to re-implement parts of our WPF app in DirectX/DirectWrite; it just seems easier to go bottom-up than top-down through ill-performing (or not-so-easy-to make-perform) abstractions.

It's more then a platform. The web is the interconnected infinitely scalable network of information the largest of which has been composed in human history. The single largest connected graph of all human knowledge and culture that is updated continuously. And it's built on top of open standards available universally on billions of devices from countless vendors. In some ways I feel like webapp is a bit of a misnomer. I tend to think of developing webapps as developing a collection of interlinked resources, and linking those resources to the wider web. IE. as a web developer, you are developing/expanding the web itself.

Anyway, perhaps I was misunderstood. I'm not saying "the web sucks - stay away from it". I'm saying "the web could be really awesome, if it weren't for these couple of really, really annoying defects". Whenever people say "the web is wonderful and perfection itself" they are underselling what it could be if only they sorted out the rusty parts and the broken practices that underpin so much of the web.

@Sven Groot: Great points. Indeed, web programming has grown up and you can build very sophisticated apps with HTML, CSS, and JS. So many libraries, so little time. Browsers have also evolved greatly, enabling the level of app development we're all seeing and/or doing. With the emergence of technologies like WebGL, now you can natively (as in native to the web platform, so JS...) leverage hardware that was off limits not too long ago... Very interesting things are being done in CSS, too.

As always, use the tool that's designed to be used to solve the problem(s) at hand. For building cross platform (browser) web apps, HTML, CSS, and JS are the right tools.

That sums it up. Bass is in some religious fervor about the web and web technologies and you best not say anything bad about it or you will go straight to hell. Apple can do no wrong also is another belief of his. Your points are well understood by others who have done more than just web programming. When Bass finds out his identity is stolen and his online bank account has been emptied and the FBI has been watching his transmissions he might see all the bad things about the web too.

I think the best apps are the ones that use the power of computing and the network like simulators and games. They run in a desktop environment and use the internet (not just http) to send and receive high speed data. You can use the internet without having to be a web browser based app. If you do a lot of stock trading the information is available on web pages but the stock traders use applications that tie into information on the web. I don't see everything running in a browser but I do see browser apps getting better. To your original point, these well done browser apps are still catching up to what the desktop could do years ago.

I'm just identifying what the web is. I didn't use qualitative adjectives to describe it, even though the web is great thing.

Religion is also a powerful idea even if it is devoid of logic and reason. The reason it sounds so religious is because the web is really that powerful of an idea, so it's easy to confuse one for another.